Recently, a friend asked me, “How come you look so happy all the time, Reiko?” I was taken aback by the question. Then I thought, it must be the accumulation of all the things for which I am grateful.
I’m not exactly sure when I started keeping my gratitude journal. With the setbacks that David and I have gone through – including fire and moving – some of the earlier notebooks seem to be missing. I started when I was still in the corporate world. So, it has been at least two decades. The credit goes to Ms. Oprah Winfrey, who talked about it on one of her shows, and I never stopped writing since.
Starting on April 30, 2018, instead of physical notebooks, I began using an electronic journal. Since then, every daily entry has been kept securely in cloud storage.
In Japan, there is a proverb that goes like this: “Even dust accumulates to form a mountain.” In other words, what may seem like a tiny effort each day results in a huge accomplishment over time. For example:
3 entries/day x 365 days accumulate to 1,151 things for which I’m grateful. At a 20-year mark, the number rises to 23,020.
When I look at these numbers, I guess I cannot help but be happy – with so many things for which I am grateful.
The possibilities of things to be grateful for are endless. It can be something as simple as “readily available drinking water,” which most of us in the U.S.A. take for granted. Or “the gift of sight.” Or “the ability to walk.” Or “the sunshine.”
Each night, I have no time to dwell on things that may have gone wrong during the day – because I am having to think of things for which I am grateful instead.
You may want to try it yourself for at least a year. See how your outlook on life will have changed 12 months from now. It is completely up to you to create for yourself a happy life, filled with gratitude.
p.s. Another routine that I go through daily pertains to health. Probably because of it, I take no prescription drugs – at least as of this writing.
